I have to say that dealing with the below scenarios last night, particularly DENVER that has 16 possible clinching scenarios if you include ties and 10 without ties to get in, was one of the toughest week 16 follow-up nights in memory. Having 8 teams within one game of each other at either 8-7 or 7-8 and 7 of those teams still have a chance to clinch a Wild Card spot has certainly created some chaos among teams, media and fans.

It should be noted that although you will see current playoff standings listing DEN and Jets as Wild Card teams ( http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/standings/playoffrace ), only the JETS and Ravens actually control their own destiny to capture playoff spots. This is because the Playoff Race page is listing results "If the Season Ended Today". As it stands among the 8-7 teams, the tiebreaker between NYJ, BAL, HOU and DEN, which becomes NYJ, BAL and DEN after HOU drops out on conf record, they do not have enough games (need four) to qualify among their common opponents (NE, CIN, IND, OAK) as BAL has not played OAK yet and NYJ has not played CIN. Detail below. If they each win, you'll see below that NYJ would have the common opponents tiebreaker advantage at 4-1 vs. 3-2 for DEN and 1-4 for BAL. After that...it would revert to BAL, HOU and DEN and HOU would drop out again on conf record and BAL beat DEN H2H to claim the #6 seed.

Common opponents for BAL DEN NYJ BAL record against NE: 0/1 (0.000) (games left 0)BAL record against CIN: 0/2 (0.000) (games left 0)BAL record against IND: 0/1 (0.000) (games left 0)BAL record against OAK: 0/0 (NaN) (games left 1)BAL overall record: 0/4 (0.000)

DEN record against NE: 1/0 (1.000) (games left 0)DEN record against CIN: 1/0 (1.000) (games left 0)DEN record against IND: 0/1 (0.000) (games left 0)DEN record against OAK: 1/1 (0.500) (games left 0)DEN overall record: 3/2 (0.600)

NYJ record against NE: 1/1 (0.500) (games left 0)NYJ record against CIN: 0/0 (NaN) (games left 1)NYJ record against IND: 1/0 (1.000) (games left 0)NYJ record against OAK: 1/0 (1.000) (games left 0)NYJ overall record: 3/1 (0.750)

Well...we made it. On week 16, thanks to the Giants turning in a clunker of a game against CAR, the final two playoff spots were secured.

Official Scenarios are below (prior to CHI-MIN game).

NOTES:- MIN wins tiebreaker over NO at 13-3 based on conf record (10-2 vs. 9-3)- Although MIN has lead on #2 seed and 1st round bye, PHI, DAL and ARI can all still garner the #2 seed. If MIN against CHI, only PHI can catch MIN (PHI wins tiebreaker on conf record).- ARI wins 3-way tiebreaker at 11-5 with DAL and MIN (MIN drops out on conf record and ARI beats DAL on common opponents 4-1 to 2-3)- PHI CANNOT be the #4 seed (if they win they will be #2 or 3 seed, if they lose they lose division title)- DAL CANNOT be the #5 seed (if they lose they lose to GB based on overall or H2H)- GB can only be the #6 seed if PHI loses and if GB loses in that case its very likely they would play ARI AGAIN a week later in the Wild Card round- Right now, MIN can be any seed from #1 thru #4. If they win tonight they can't be #4 and if they lose tonight they can't be #1.

Due to popular demand, I am starting this thread to discuss general NFL Tiebreaker procedures. Feel free to bring up any tiebreaker topics here, but let's keep the scenarios to the conference threads and let's try to limit this to procedures and historical discussions.

Let's imagine for a second that the six teams tied at 7-7 in the AFC were currently battling it out for Wild Card spots (i.e. BAL and DEN were 6-8 instead of 8-6). The JAC, TEN, HOU divisional situation lends itself to the previous discussion of divisional tiebreakers and the current procedures language in the NFL By-Laws.

Is there any question as to how the tiebreakers are applied in this situation based on the procedures OR is the question still about certain language being superfluous?